The Surrey Local Resilience Forum will be re-purposing the former Bookham Youth Centre as a food distribution hub, as part of the their response to COVID-19.
The Property Services team at Surrey County Council (SCC) identified the former Bookham Youth Centre site for use as a distribution hub, a suggestion that was ratified by the Strategic Coordinating Group of the LRF on the 17th June. The building is currently having work undertaken to bring it up to specification for use as a food distribution hub.
The site will contain bulk ambient food which will be sorted into food boxes and distributed by SCC Community Transport providers across the county. At present, the average number of boxes going out will not exceed 120 boxes in a week, and these will be distributed Monday to Friday. Transport vehicles will collect their parcels via the Eastwick Park Avenue entrance.
The site will operate between 9.00 am and 5.00 pm each weekday, with several deliveries of bulk food a month. These deliveries will also be to the Eastwick Park Avenue entrance. The site will be staffed by SCC contracted staff, with all costs for the site being paid by SCC.
In addition to the immediate needs to support the Shielding Community, it is the intention of the LRF to utilise Bookham as a distribution hub within Test and Trace. In this role, it will provide short-term assistance to those individuals who are asked to self-isolate and do not have access to food and other key supplies.
It’s really great to see this building being used as part of the important response to support the vulnerable people in Surrey.
And Bookham can rest assured that this is a temporary use of the building and does not in any way detract from the project to rebuild a new youth centre for the benefit of the young people and wider community – I am still very busy with that together with the BRA and all other stakeholders.
If you have any queries, please contact me: clare.curran@surreycc.gov.uk.
Clare Curran – Surrey County Council Councillor for Bookham & Fetcham West
